scope:

Scope and objective

This guideline covers biological waste treatment facilities with an approved throughput capacity of more than approx. 6.000 Mg/h. The feedstock processed in such facilities is biodegradable waste such as yard waste and biowaste. The guideline describes the state of the art for biological waste treatment facilities using aerobic and anaerobic processes with a special focus on the air pollutants generated such as odorous compounds, harmful gaseous compounds, dust and micro-organisms. The prescriptions of this guideline regarding emission control/environmental impact abatement are valid for analogical application to production plants for mushroom substrate.

The objective of the emission control measures in such facilities is to prevent harmful environmental impacts, especially odour nuisance for the neighbourhood and the plant operating personnel. The measures required to meet this objective are presented, i.e.

• organisational measures for the collection, delivery, receiving and conditioning of the material and for plant operation
• controlled interventions into the waste treatment process
• design of mechanical equipment, buildings and aeration and ventilation systems
• use of exhaust air cleaning equipment

On principle, all the processes described below qualify as state-of-the-art technologies in terms of this guideline if they are equipped with adequate primary and secondary emission control measures.

Because of the great variety of processes encountered in practice, this guideline only describes the process principles and lists some process variants as an example without making any claim to exhaustive coverage.

Mechanical-biological residual waste (MBR) treatment plants are the subject of a separate VDI guideline (VDI 3475 Part 3 [70], in preparation). Pending the publication of Part 3, the information about MBR plants given in Part 1 is to provide initial guidance on the specific requirements to be taken into account for the different types of plant. As for the rest, reference is made to the provisions of the 30th Ordinance of the German Federal Immission Control Regulations (30th BImSchV) for MBR treatment plants [6].

The data indicated in the tables and graphs of this guideline, in particular the odorant concentrations and flow rates are examples only. In the specific case, the actual values may vary noticeably from the data indicated.